


You gotta have trust

by SatanInACroptop



Series: Carry It With No Regrets [5]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Domestic, Fluff, Good Peter, M/M, but not underage because he's 18 here, obvious age gap is obvious, which is this entire series once again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-06
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2018-02-24 09:36:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2576780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SatanInACroptop/pseuds/SatanInACroptop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Sheriff was going to find out eventually.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You gotta have trust

The problem with getting better is that eventually, people start to notice.

This is not a problem for most of us.

It is a huge problem if the solution you have found in life happens to be a werewolf who may have killed a handful of people, has at least a decade on your age, and has also evaded police capture by your father, the sheriff.

Stiles’ father has been asking about it, in the way he doesn't ask at all. He smiles when Stiles smiles, he gives him the eyebrow raise which questions everything when Stiles comes home late grinning from ear to ear with a bounce in his step that has nothing to do with this ADD. He never says the words, but what he isn't saying is very, very obvious.

The silence stops the day Stiles drops his keys on the kitchen table, where his dad is sitting in his civilian clothes with a glass of milk and a small plate of Oreos which he will defend with his sidearm if necessary.

"Stiles."

Stiles pauses in chugging milk only to turn around and 'hmm?' at him.

"Whose key is that?"

Stiles then begins to choke on milk. Or is it drowning at that point? He barely manages to put the carton back in the fridge without dumping it on the floor. He proceeds to grab a paper towel in a vain attempt to blow the milk out of his nose. There are eyebrows demanding an answer.

"Well, dad-"

"Boy or a girl?" He grins, because to the sheriff this is all too funny. The thought of Stiles sneaking around with some kid is the height of comedy and relief. The kid needs some normal in his life.

His son huffs in response, mocking offense that maybe isn't entirely mocking.

"Does it really matter?"

The sheriff thinks on it for only a moment, and shrugs.

"I suppose not. How long have you been seeing each other? A key should be, well, pretty important, kiddo."

Stiles nods too many times, like the very mention of it's existence is enough to remind him of just how important it's meaning is. "Eight months."

The Sheriff looks at Stiles until he sits down in the seat across from him. His dad dunks a cookie into the milk, and the kid who hasn't been one for a long time types out a text with the lightning speed of his generation before pocketing it to give his father is undivided attention.

"So. How does this work. Do they have a key to our house?"

Stiles shakes his head. His foot starts tapping on the floor, the sound of his Chuck Taylors quiet on the old linoleum. "No, no, I wouldn't. That's not my place, this isn't - "

The sheriff eyebrows him in a way that says he's starting to worry about how little time his son spends in his own home.

"-don't look at me like that, you know what I mean. You own this house, I live under it by your rules, it's not place to invite him into it whenever he likes. I have a key to his place because it's his."

Stiles shoves his hands through his hair, and the Sheriff is suddenly concerned that his son looks far more worried than a kid in a happy relationship should be.

"So it's a boy then."

"Dad-"

"I'm not judging! Stiles, as long as you're happy, as long as they treat you well, I'm happy for you."

When Stiles finally stops staring at the floor to look at his Dad again, there's a glimmer of something in his eyes that makes him seem much smaller than he is, like he's still a kid despite the fact that his 18th birthday as two months ago.

"You promise?"

The Sheriff drops the cookie into the milk. It hits the bottom of the pint glass with a resounding thud that shouldn't sound as loud as it does. It's suddenly very quiet.

"Well, now I'm not so sure. Now you have me wondering exactly how I'm going to eat those words."

The tapping of Stiles foot gets faster and louder, and he starts chewing on his thumb.

"Well, Dad, I am 18 now, so I'm not, I mean-"

"You mean aren't breaking the law now, but you have been for the other six months of this relationship?" The Sheriff’s head drops into his hands, and he stares at the cookie at the bottom of the glass wondering if there is any hope of salvaging it. "Exactly how old is he?"

"Funny story about that--"

Before Stiles can finish the sentence, the doorbell rings. The Sheriff looks at Stiles, who looks supremely guilty for a kid who's gotten so very good at lying all the time.

"Am I allowed to get that?" He asks and the Sheriff leans back in his chair.

"That depends. Are we going to be interrupted?"

"No."

"Okay then."

Stiles leaps out of the chair like its bitten him, and flat out sprints for the door. His father would think he were running out for any excuse to leave, if he didn't know what a hastily typed up text and a sudden visitor at noon on a Sunday added up to.

He can hear whispering at the door, a chuckle that is not Stiles' own laugh, and something that sounds oddly affectionate for Stiles' usual level of snark and sarcasm. Anyone who's been able to break through that level of defenses has already earned a place in the Sheriff's heart.

He hears someone tell his son that it will be fine, they've faced worse than this, when the door clicks shut and two sets of footsteps make their way back into the kitchen.

His son walks in with Peter Hale behind him.

The Sheriff is very glad he opted against drinking his milk, otherwise he would be the second Stilinski with milk up his nose.

No one says a word.

"Dad. Say something."

Peter Hale is being oddly quiet. From what little the Sheriff has seen of him, he would have expected him to be more chatty.

"I...I expected Derek to be the one standing there."

Peter huffs an exasperated sigh, closely followed by a truly impressive eyeroll, which says he must get that a lot.

Stiles takes the older man's hand.

"I'm pretty sure the safety of Beacon Hills may rest on Derek never dating anyone ever again."

The Sheriff can't help but grin at that, and neither can Peter. How he can find the notion of his nephew dating two serial killers comical, Stiles’ father has no idea.

"Do you have somewhere to be?" The Sheriff asks, because it's Beacon Hills and for all he knows, something could be out there killing people that needs to be stopped.

Peter shrugs. "Stiles messaged, I came."

The fact that the two actions seem to be perfectly natural for the werewolf, the werewolf that the Sheriff knows to have killed multiple people, is absolutely bewildering in scale.

"Then sit."

They sit, and the Sheriff just knows they're holding hands under the table.

"So Stiles, are you going to answer that question, or do I have to ask Peter?"

Honestly, the Sheriff isn't sure he even wants to know, but the words are out before he can stop them. This is where Stiles picked up the habit from.

"Ah, well, Dad, as I was saying-" Stiles hand is on the back of his neck and he looks at Peter as if asking for help.

That's when the Sheriff realizes that Peter has never told him.

"I'm 32, Sheriff."

Stiles's father simultaneously blinks rapidly, and breathes in a sharp intake of air. "That's quite the gap."

"Well," Stiles offers, elbow on the table so his free hand can wildly gesture between them, "if you take off the six years he was in a coma, he has the maturity of a 26 year old, which isn't that much older than Derek."

The Sheriff frowns.

"But Peter wasn't comatose, Stiles."

Peter nods in agreement. Though from where he's sitting, in a white Henley with jeans and boots, he actually looks less like a criminal element than his nephew.

"That's true, I was catatonic. Mentally aware and insane for most of it. Coming back to life seems to have put my mental faculties back into order."

Stiles looks at him with the lopsided grin he reserves only for his closest loved ones, like Scott and his father. "Yeah, you weren't any fun the first time around. No sass, no jokes. It was sad, really."

Peter eyebrows back at him and the Sheriff has the feeling the two have already forgotten his existence completely.

"I was never sad."

"True, that was Derek. That's why he has frown lines and you don't."

Stiles is careful not to say that Peter instead has eye crinkles, which he loves to see when Peter smiles from his eyes to his teeth. He doesn't think his father will like that very much.

His father, who not at all discreetly, coughs from his side of the table.

The Sheriff then launches into a very long winded speech about being safe, sane, and consensual. There are details that neither man wants to hear. Both of their ears turn red, much to the Sheriff's satisfaction.

Stiles speaks up to defend Peter, rather than the man defending himself. He tells his father that Peter has been nothing but supportive and patient. That he's been the rock which got him through everything that's happened since the possession, and that everything which has occurred in their relationship has been at Stiles behest, and not the otherway around. He talks until he runs out of air, looking from his father to the man sitting next to him, whose expression is something between amused and fond. He asks Peter how he's doing, and the man nods and says:

"Well enough." Peter then tells the Sheriff that he only has Stiles' best intentions at heart, and always will. "Stiles," he says finally, "is the only person I've ever met who I can't seem to be selfish with. I respect him too much for that."

The silence which follows seems to run bone deep.

"Are you going to shoot him?" Stiles asks and Peter's eyebrows shoot into his hairline in concern. "Because I would request that if you do, you kindly use the clip you already have loaded, and not the back-up in your holster."

The Sheriff shakes his head in dismay. Of course Stiles has switched his back-up rounds for wolfsbane. Why would he suspect anything less?

"That depends. Were you two ever planning on telling me? Because as much as the key is clearly a sign of permanence, sneaking around isn't."

Stiles brow pinches at that and Peter's fingers tighten around his under the table, where they rest on Stiles chair next to his thigh.

"Like I said, I was going to wait till my college acceptance letters came back-"

"-and I was planning on a chat once your spark showed itself," Peter grins privately, staring out the window like he's suddenly grown fond of the song birds in the rhododendron. But he's not looking outside. "Though I suppose that time has finally come."

Stiles mouth opens wide enough for a bird to fly in, and he looks from his father to his boyfriend (his BOYFRIEND) in what both men know to be his expression of utter bewilderment.

"My what?"

"Stiles. You're thinking about how your mother used to be, with your father before, aren't you?"

Stiles mouth somehow opens wider. "Dude, you told me you weren't psychic! You said that was only a limbo thing!"

Peter huffs a laugh, and its hard to tell which Stilinski is more confused. Until the Sheriff sees what Peter see's reflected in the window. There, in the living room, is the last photograph taken of the complete Stilinski family, mother, father and son, levitating ten feet in the air, well above the end table it normally resides on.

"Stiles," his father says, "you're making the beach photo levitate."

Stiles turns around just in time for the frame to fall to the floor and for once his father is glad he hasn't replaced the carpet as it falls without breaking.

"Oh my god!" Stiles gasps, looking from his father to the man sitting next to him. "What the hell does this mean?"

Peter smiles something soft and knowing, and the Sheriff swears he sees a hint of pride.

"It means you're on your way to becoming an Emissary, like Deaton. You've got years of training ahead of you, of course, and as always it is entirely your decision."

The Sheriff frowns at the Oreo turned to mush. "You're still going to college."

"Well, yeah!" Stiles exclaims, gesturing again. "But not far. I applied for a couple places, but I'm hoping for Berkley. They're close by, and they have an awesome CJ program."

The Sheriff nods, attempting to take it all in like it's facts in a case. His son is in an apparently serious relationship with Peter Hale. His son is apparently magically gifted, but still wants to pursue a normal career. And he clearly isn't planning on getting out of Beacon Hills, though the Sheriff genuinely wishes he would.

"Alright," he says finally and fights not to grin when both man and no longer a teenager sit up straighter to hear his final decision. "If you're both serious about this, then we take it seriously. Peter, I'd like to get to know the man who think's he's good enough to date my son, and right now all I've got is your criminal file and medical records. If you want my permission to continue seeing him while he lives under my roof, you'll come to dinner every Saturday night. Seven sharp. No exceptions save for life or death situations."

Peter nods and agrees verbally without even a moment to consider it. He's deadly serious about this, the Sheriff realizes then, and though he should be worried, oddly enough he's not. Peter's smart, and when it comes down to it, he'll do whatever he has to to keep Stiles safe.

Thats more than the Sheriff can say for most.

"I was gonna order a pizza and watch the game. I'd like it if you both stayed."

Stiles looks at Peter expectantly, and the man shrugs in answer. "We could use a break."

The Sheriff eyebrows as he hands Stiles the phone to make the call. "Do I want to know?"

Again, Peter shrugs.

"We discovered that grimlocks explode," he drops his voice to a whisper and leans closer to tell the Sheriff, "Don't tell Stiles, but I'm having the Jeep reupholstered from the floor up."

"That bad?" John hisses, and Peter nods with a quiet affirmative as Stiles hangs up the phone.

Peter doesn't even like the Mets, but there is something highly amusing about the father and son pair yelling at the television screen for three hours without letting up.

He's looking forward to Saturday nights.

 

 


End file.
